


real or not real

by ironarana



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, IronDad and SpiderSon, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Other, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-28 13:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19813396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironarana/pseuds/ironarana
Summary: MAJOR FAR FROM HOME SPOILERSPeter squeezes his eyes shut, clenching and uncurling his fingers anxiously. It’s not real, he thinks, panicked. It’s an illusion, it’s not real.He desperately wants it to be real. He’s waiting for everything to be shattered into a thousand pieces, he’s waiting for the twist in his stomach and the gut dropping feeling of failure as he watches May die.Or, Peter is struggling in the wake of facing off against Mysterio and a few of the most important people in his life are there to remind him of what is real and what is not.





	real or not real

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys!! my name is daisy and this is my first fic on ao3 so i'm hoping that i tagged everything properly and did everything right. let me know if there were any errors with the formatting or anything. i have actually already posted this fic before on my wattpad which is in my bio but i figured i'd post it here too and a couple other one shots i've already written. 
> 
> be sure to comment as you go and all that good stuff!!

When Peter wakes, he is gasping for air as he thrashes, lungs burning like he’s been drowning, the torrential wave of nightmares cresting then slamming against him over and over again.

Too many times he watched Michelle die. May. Ned. Too many times he was torn away from everyone he’s ever loved and watched everything glimmer entreatingly, like a serene pond, before the tide was turned against him into a horrifying amalgamation of colors and taunts.

He hears the derision from Beck, grating and echoing in his ears, as his wide eyes scan the bedroom and he hears a pounding. It’s his heart against his ribs and hurried footsteps down the hall and May bursting into his room a second later.

_"If you were good enough, maybe he would still be alive."_

“Stop!” he yells as he bursts out of bed, voice wet and his eyes brimming with tears. His fingers tremble as he holds a hand out and shakily orders, “Stop, don’t-don’t come closer, May!”

A barely visible hurt flickers across her features as she struggles to maintain a calm composure. But he sees it: the still painful sadness flowing just beneath the cracks. Gently, from a distance, she assures him, “Peter, it’s me, honey. It’s just me.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut, clenching and uncurling his fingers anxiously. _It’s not real,_ he thinks, panicked. _It’s an illusion, it’s not real._

He desperately wants it to be real. He’s waiting for everything to be shattered into a thousand pieces, he’s waiting for the twist in his stomach and the gut dropping feeling of failure as he watches May die.

But no. She’s still standing in front of him and she doesn’t edge any closer. She watches helplessly and Peter hopes with all his heart that’s she’s real. That everything is.

He forces his breaths to even out and the blood beating in his ears to recede as he flounders and stutters out, “Okay, uh. Real or not real, you-you were so mad when you found out that I-that I was Spider-Man that you-you grounded me for one week straight and then we, uh, we talked everything out and you for-you forgave me. Was that real?”

May nods. A brief, elated smile tilts her lips then falls away. Her voice is teary when she replies, “Yes. That was real.”

She’s right. She’s right and Peter has never been more grateful as relief floods his system and he sighs, able to rest in the tangibility of everything. May, as she breaks the distance and embraces him. The bed May eases him down onto as Peter holds on tightly and lets himself cry into her shoulder. She caresses his cheek and then runs a hand through his hair, the other rubbing circles soothingly over his back as she rocks him back and forth, shushing him gently.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s okay, honey, you’re here, it’s okay.”

It tethers him to reality and he comes back down slowly. He’s still waiting for the walls to cave in on themselves or for the room to start spinning and folding in at the edges. But as time wears on and nothing happens, he relaxes a little bit more. His breaths quiet, silent tears falling down his cheeks like they did the night it happened.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

May is quiet. Outside, headlights shine through the sleepless night, shadows shifting over his door as his breathing hitches and he closes his eyes, letting himself listen to the steadying rhythm of her heartbeat through her shirt. A reminder that she is alive and she is safe and that he would do anything to make sure she stays that way forever.

The clincher, the one that calms him, comes in the still tender reply that’s barely above a whisper, and yet she hears him all the same.

She always hears him.

“I know,” she says, gentle. “I know.”

-

In Decathlon practice, Peter learns Michelle is a great leader. Not too strict and she doesn’t work them too hard but encourages dedication and diligence nonetheless.

She deals question cards from her stack out to the team members, who are circled around a table in the library. Peter is trying very hard not to look at the drawings and posters of various Avengers pinned to the corkboard on the back wall. Instead, he focuses on the text on his own card and reads it over and over until it’s burned into his retinas.

He misses the question someone asks until Ned elbows him in the ribs.

Peter snaps his gaze away from his card to Flash, who is glaring both warily and expectantly.

“I’m sorry, what was the question?” Peter asks.

Flash groans and rolls his eyes. “What is the full name for a holographic piece of tech used in the medical and psychological fields?”

Peter recalls the name with a stunning clarity which unintentionally inflicts a new torrent of images for him to fight against. Too stunned to reply, Cindy hastily answers as he clenches his fingers, trying to fight off the wave and keep his cool even as the bookshelves are bending on in themselves and warbling, whining, screaming. The corkboard on the back wall dissolves into ashes as Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing echoes back at him in his mind.

He feels his throat closing as the answer chokes him out, clamping down into his lungs like a vice. Air comes in short and quiet as he squeezes his eyes shut, trying desperately to sense the drones and hoping against hope they’re not there.

But they are. They’re here, he knows they are. But the ringing in his ears drowns out all his senses as his classmates voice mesh together, the noise pinching him in the back of his mind. Somewhere, he hears Michelle’s voice moving underneath it all, a current of serious concern and heaviness.

The room suddenly feels too hot and everything is too close for comfort, his skin prickling with heat.

The biting sensation in his mind spreads, preparing to swallow him whole. _It’s not real, it’s all just a projection,_ his frantic mind supplies.

He tries to deny it. _Beck is gone, he’s not here. He’s not coming back._

And then he hears Michelle, words laced with worry when she says, “Peter? You okay?”

His eyes open and he sees her, eyes tinged with insistence and tenderness and he hears her desperate pleas for help as she’s choked out by Beck and then, all his senses leave him, the scales tipping in favor of unbearableness as he flees the room, not even caring if he looks like a flake or a coward.

_“You’re just a scared little boy in a sweatsuit.”_

He locks himself in the janitor’s closet and sinks down against the wall, trying to grab hold of something. Anything. Something tangible and real, something that won’t fall away under his fingers.

He grabs onto a shelf and tries to breath, feels the wood grain beneath his fingertips. Everything is so much more fragile now. It’s all so easily broken and so hard to piece together again.

It’s hard to piece himself together again.

He’s not sure how much time passes before he hears a gentle knocking on the door and it startles him. Michelle’s voice comes soft through the wood.

“Peter? You alright in there?”

Unsteadily, he replies, “MJ?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Ned too. Hey, can you come out? The door’s locked and this is...kinda hard with it between us.”

Still shaken, and still not sure reality won’t start unraveling before his very eyes, he asks, “Why did I give you the flower?”

There’s a beat. Two. “What?” Michelle replies, almost incredulous.

“Real or not real: I-I gave you the flower necklace because of the murder.”

“Real, that’s real, Peter, this is all real. He’s...he’s gone, okay? He’s dead, he’s not coming back.”

Peter tries to take it as gospel, even as he hears Beck’s words ringing in his ears like church bells.

_“If you were good enough, maybe he would still be alive.”_

“Peter, can you just open the door please? Just come out, okay? We don’t even have to talk about it.”

He lets himself breathe a few more times and when he doesn’t hear any receding footsteps, he stands, his legs wobbly beneath him. He unlocks the door. Opens it. Ned and Michelle are still waiting on the other side and she steps forward, throws her arms around his neck. He sags with relief and reciprocates, wrapping his arms around her waist, feeling how her heart beats against his. He measures his pulse until they both beat in tandem and finally, Michelle withdraws but her hands remain on his forearms. Steadying, warm. Real.

“I’d ask you if you’re alright but that’d be a dumb question,” Michelle says with an awkward laugh.

Peter laughs too, all breath and unease. “Yeah, it-it would be.”

“Michelle cancelled practice early,” Ned says, stepping forward. “Everyone left. If you want, we can all hang out at my house. We don’t even have to talk about it. Just...let us be there for you, okay?”

Peter nods. “Okay. Thank you.”

Michelle’s hand slides down to his and she interlaces their fingers. “Come on, let’s go.”

They hold hands all the way there and even then, she lingers, ready to catch him if he falls.

-

One weekend, everyone is busy. With May working double night shifts and Michelle and Ned out of town, Happy takes him to the lakehouse to stay for the night.

It’s a welcome reprieve from the chaos of the city and a good time to reconnect. It’s been hard going out as Spider-Man ever since he was branded as a menace. Ms. Potts was nice enough to take care of it - not by herself, of course - and preserve his identity by proclaiming the video as fake and inventing a cover story as to why Mysterio was out for him. It worked well enough but the Daily Bugle still continued to slander him and unfortunately, he had to take it. Freedom of speech and all that.

He was angry, at first. Eventually, it faded to a depressing resignment that this is the new normal. A once beloved hero turned “public menace” in Jameson’s eyes. But at least he still has people left who will defend him. Some of Earth’s best, in fact.

Happy slows to a stop outside the lakehouse and Peter clambers out. He takes a deep breath, letting the sharp aroma of pine fill his senses. It’s so quiet out here with only the chirping of birds and crickets to fill the air.

“She'll be in later tonight,” Happy says as he grabs Peter’s bag out of the trunk. “A gala. I’ll be in the guest house if you need anything.”

Peter nods and takes his overnight bag. “Thanks, Happy.”

“No problem. And Morgan’s at her uncle’s so, you got the house to yourself for a bit. She’ll be picked up on the way back.”

“She could’ve stayed with me.”

“Pepper didn’t want to put that on you.”

“Oh.”

Peter climbs the stairs of the lakehouse and heads inside upstairs to the guest room. He’s only stayed here overnight a few times but he navigates with ease up the stairway, down the hall and through the last door on the right. Once he drops off his bag, he heads back downstairs and activates the holotable just off the kitchen.

“Good evening, Peter,” FRIDAY greets.

“Hey, FRIDAY,” Peter replies. “Can we, um, can we design some new suits today?”

“Sure, Peter. Retrieving digital files now.”

He works late into the night, making sure to stop for dinner. He scrounges around in the cabinets like a raccoon and returns to the holotable with unhealthy foods he’s sure doesn’t qualify as dinner but persuades himself to the idea that they do. He messes around with different emblems and color schemes on the suits, tries out color blocking and remembers his past failures with other suits, accounts for what he wishes he had in different crises and adds new features accordingly.

He’s not sure how late it was when he stopped and dragged himself over the couch, barely able to keep his eyes open and less able to trudge up the stairs to the guest room. He just knows that when he wakes, this time it’s with a scream jammed in his throat.

He pants raggedly as a nearby light flicks on and footsteps hurry down the stairs and through the living room. In the darkness, a shadowy figure rounds the couch and settles down beside him.

“Peter, you’re alright. You’re here, you’re alright.”

Peter latches onto the voice and lets it drag him out of the nightmare, the hells he’d faced. The blinding white flash, the gun going off. He squeezes his eyes shut, unable to face reality. Or not reality. He still doesn’t know, it’s hard to tell nowadays, but he has to know.

“Real or not real: You died.”

“No,” Tony replies, adamant. “Not real. I’m right here, Pete. I’m not going anywhere.”

Tony wraps an arm around Peter’s shaking shoulders and tugs him close against his side. He listens to the steady thumping of Tony’s heartbeat through his shirt and closes his eyes as they sink into the couch cushions. Something in his chest loosens and he feels safe. Warm. Tony is the most real thing he’s felt in a long time.

Peter breathes in and out deeply as he relaxes, tension leeching away. With one hand, Tony cards his fingers through Peter’s hair soothingly.

“It’s okay,” Tony assures, softly. “It’s okay, kid. I got you. You’re safe, you’re right here. I’m not letting you go anywhere, I promise.”

And for all his faults, for all the mistakes he’s made in trusting people he shouldn’t, Peter believes him.

But this time, he knows it’s the right choice.

And he knows that Tony’s promise is real.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys liked it!! i'm a little nervous to be posting on here because i know there are so many amazingly talented authors on here and i'm gonna try hard not to compare myself lol but it's hard!! 
> 
> be sure to leave a comment or a kudos if you enjoyed the story and also, feel free to follow me on instagram and wattpad, both of which are @ ironarana. 
> 
> bye guys, see you next time!


End file.
